Treading Water
by blood red youth
Summary: Hours ahead of an attack, Kurda is disappointed to discover that Mika doesn't have all the answers.


I had really high hopes for this, but in the end it doesn't really work. I might rewrite it at some point. It's pretty abrupt at points, so don't be surprised when the shift in tone hits!

* * *

><p>It was approaching dawn. So far, they had been travelling for five nights, and had failed to complete a journey that ought to have only taken them two. There were various factors worthy of blame for what Mika had appropriately called <em>this<em> _monumental cock-up_. The first was their useless companion, a young trainee who Paris had earmarked early for glory and who was displaying every sign of being a complete disappointment, and the second was Arrow's utterly fucked sense of direction.

"I'm going to ask you a question," Mika said, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort not to lose his temper. "I want you to answer me honestly. Have you _any_ idea how we get to the city from here?"

"Don't patronise me, you ugly bastard," Arrow grunted in response, clearly only the_ slightest bit_ tetchy at having his ability questioned. "As soon as we find the road, we'll just follow the cars."

Hissing through his teeth as though he'd been burned, Mika forced himself to take two deep breaths before responding.

"Cars travel both ways on every road I've ever seen, Arrow," he groaned, tossing away his weapons and his heavy jacket. The sun was rising, but it wouldn't burn them for another hour or so yet – there was enough time to take stock of their situation. "If you'd admitted you were lost, I'd have purchased a map."

Arrow let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Maps are for humans. And what would you have done with it, smart ass? In case it's escaped your attention, _you can't read_."

Before their spat could escalate into a blowout, their young travelling companion drew up beside them, panting with exhaustion. He was slender, without any of the usual muscle definition that identified members of the clan, and when he lowered the equipment the older Generals had encouraged him to carry to the ground, his arms shook mightily with the effort.

He had also expressed more interest in _why_ they were planning an attack on the Vampaneze than any other trainee Mika had ever come across, and that very fact unsettled him. Arrow had used his questions to fill him in on the dangers of the Vampaneze and the need to bring them into line when they caused too much havoc, but Mika could tell that Kurda already knew about all of that. His interest stemmed from a line of thinking that was more dangerous.

"You're useless, as well," Mika complained, waving a despairing hand at the youth before launching into his best possible impression of his voice: slightly nasal, irritatingly eloquent. "_I'm a thinker_, you said, _I'm a strategist, _you said. Enlighten me, Kurda. What's your strategy here?"

The slim blond took a seat on top of one of the large bags he'd carried on their way here, mostly containing other weaponry Arrow had insisted they might need upon arrival. He smiled pleasantly, which only served to make the dark General wish he could get away with beating him to a pulp, staking him to the ground and leaving him here to burn _without_ incurring Paris' wrath when he returned.

"This might not be what you want to hear," he said, in his unassuming tone. "But I think we're going the wrong way."

The two Generals regarded him with two identical death glares.

"They said in the briefing that the city was on the East coast, right?" he continued nervously, casting his eyes downward to avoid having to look directly at either of them any longer. "Well, the Sun rises in the East."

The light was growing now, the glow of the sunrise irritating his eyes. Mika realized as he started to squint that East was the direction they had spent the past twelve hours travelling away from.

"You're an idiot," he snapped at his brother, after a long pause. Seemingly pretending that he had lost interest in this conversation just as he'd been proven completely wrong, Arrow was suddenly completely preoccupied with dusting off his heavy boots. Not satisfied with that, Mika jabbed the back of his head sharply with the hilt of his sword.

"You didn't think of that either," Arrow defended shyly. "You're the one who's supposed to be becoming a _Prince_."

"Jealousy is a lovely colour on you," Mika spat. "Besides, at this rate, I wouldn't count on it. There probably won't be any Vampaneze _left_ by the time we get there – last I heard, Paris sent back-up the night after we left, and assuming the back-up have either two brain cells between them _or_ a compass, I think they probably beat us there."

"Maybe we should rest for the day," Kurda joined in, clearly trying to sound as optimistic as possible.

Mika quirked a dark eyebrow. At this point, any excuse for a satisfying argument was a good one. "Remarkable intuition there, Smahlt," he snarled. "What tipped you off, was it by any chance the _sunrise_?"

Arrow grunted miserably. "Leave the kid alone, you miserable fuck," he said. He raised a hand to wave it in the direction the three vampires could now thankfully identify as West. "I can make out a town over there. We can set up there for the day and then make an early start at sunset."

Mika sighed heavily, and then assented to that with a weary nod. It was the best they could do for now.

* * *

><p>Arrow and Mika enlisted Kurda's help in renting the room. Being "barely past adolescence", as Mika had complained earlier in their trip, as well as a hopeless pacifist, Kurda still looked mainly human, and the pretty receptionist behind the desk hadn't given him any of the strange looks Arrow and Mika had come to expect. They scaled the outside wall of the hotel uncertainly until they located a blond head poking out of a fourth floor window, and then hauled themselves inside.<p>

Almost instantly, Arrow located the armchair on the other side of the room and dropped himself into it, pulling on a spare quilt from the top of the wardrobe and mumbling a grumpy _goodnight_ to the other two occupants.

Kurda had politely offered to share the bed, but Mika had shuddered at the thought and made himself at home on the carpet next to a small table. He pulled down a few books and leaflets that the hotel staff clearly provided for all guests, staring blankly at the pictures for a few seconds before setting each aside one by one.

Watching this, Kurda sighed.

"What are you looking for?" he asked, careful to keep his voice low. Arrow's breathing was growing heavier, and the young vampire didn't wish to face his wrath if he was woken early.

Mika snarled, looking up at his young companion with obvious disgust. He continued his quest of flicking through the books one by one until he apparently found one which took his interest. He cast the others aside and waved his discovery in Kurda's direction impatiently.

"A map, bright spark," he hissed. "You might have figured out which way was East, but that doesn't tell me how far we are from the right city."

He began tracing a finger over the random page he'd picked from the middle of the book as if hoping to alight on something which would give him an answer. Fearing a bad reaction if he said anything else, Kurda tried to settle down on the lumpy double bed, secretly thankful for the warm blanket and pillow. He lay silently, eyes closed, and then when he could still hear the impatient flicking of pages a few minutes later he cautiously rose into a sitting position.

"It's Arthur Street," he blurted, consequences be damned.

It was growing lighter outside, and the thin curtains did very little to stop the glare from creeping inside. Arrow was spared from the inconvenience, having wisely shifted his chair to face the wall as soon as he had collapsed into it. Mika squinted determinedly down at the map, one hand raised to protect his eyes a little from the obtrusive sunlight. The General glared at the assistant through narrowed eyes.

"What?"

"It's Arthur Street," Kurda repeated, patiently. "That's the name of the road we're on right now. I just thought it might help, if you'd missed the sign."

He was half-expecting a beating from the fearsome older vampire, but this time Mika only sighed. Sensing that he was no longer furious, Kurda sacrificed his comfort for the sake of Mika's eyes, tucking his blanket over the curtains to block out more of the morning light.

"I didn't _miss the sign_," Mika growled, but he no longer sounded threatening. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and yawned despite himself. "You know full well I can't read."

Kurda half-smiled. "I can read. Would you like me to help?"

The question was a loaded one. Kurda had only spoken to Mika for the first time a week ago when the three of them had been assigned this mission. Over that short period, he had come to realize that despite all efforts to hold himself aloof, Mika was incredibly easy to read. Asking him whether he _wanted_ help was probably about as good as asking him whether he _wanted _to be dragged to the Hall of Death by his ankles and dropped on the stakes.

"No," Mika responded flatly, looking quite affronted at the idea that Kurda considered him in need of such a thing as _help_. "Go to sleep. You need rest more than I do."

From anyone else's mouth it might have been an innocent comment, but from Mika, who doled out insults as though they were nothing more outrageous than comments on the weather, it was clearly something else. _You're weak_, Kurda could hear masked in his tone, but the insinuation didn't sting – he had faced more than enough of those kinds of comments from others before.

Without asking any more questions, he lowered himself down across from Mika and plucked the map from his hands, turning straight to the back.

"There's no shame in not being able to read," he commented lightly, risking a glance upwards. "Most vampires never learned, and most would never use the skill even if they had."

He located the correct page and looked it over for a moment. It wasn't far to the city, a night's travel at a medium pace, and he passed it back with a finger over their exact location and another over the edge of the city.

Mika took note of that, and then slammed the map shut without thanks. He hadn't asked for assistance, and Kurda wasn't surprised that he wasn't grateful for it.

"You'd have found it in the end," he quipped, unable to resist, and Mika growled in response.

"I suppose you think we should all know how to read," he raged, still keeping his voice below its normal level in an effort not to rouse Arrow. "You think the rest of us are idiots."

Kurda frowned. "I don't," he argued, and for the most part that was an honest response. He didn't think other vampires were stupid just because they couldn't read – whether they were stupid for the decisions they made and the way they chose to conduct themselves was another story entirely. "I've never said –"

"It's obvious," Mika interrupted. "You aren't like the rest of us because you don't _want_ to be. It's no wonder everyone hates you."

Kurda couldn't think of a response to that. He wasn't offended, but the conversation had taken quite an unexpected turn and he wasn't sure where to go with it from here.

"Why are you a vampire?" Mika asked, brow furrowed, eyes dark.

"What?"

That wasn't the kind of question vampires asked one another. From what he'd gathered so far, everyone had a rather complicated and sometimes quite harrowing past that had led them to this point. Many people had said he was unsuitable for this life, but nobody had ever asked him for his reasoning before.

"It's been bothering me," Mika clarified unapologetically. It was clear from the look on his face that he felt he had every right to have the question answered promptly and in plenty of detail, however personal it might be. "_You've_ been bothering me. Was it just that you didn't know what you were getting into?"

Kurda had been blooded by a noble man named Philo. Philo had never been a General and never intended to become one. He was intelligent, soft-spoken, different from the others. He had never intended to take an assistant. He had never killed a Vampaneze.

_We would stand stronger together_, he'd said, when Kurda questioned him, _but the Generals do not understand that yet_.

"It was all explained to me," he admitted, pushing thoughts of Philo out of his mind. It was dead and gone now, nothing more than a painful memory, and Kurda had grown to accept that he would never see Philo again. Seba had assured him that they would meet in Paradise, one night, but Kurda didn't believe in such a thing. "I was warned that I would be different."

Mika huffed, but after a moment of staring at the younger vampire suspiciously decided not to ask any further questions. Kurda's lips twitched, and Mika could already see the questions forming in his mind that he'd been waiting to ask when Arrow wasn't around.

"What are we hoping to achieve?" he asked, and though it seemed like he tried to keep the edge out of his voice it managed to creep in anyway. "On this mission, I mean. The plan is to drive the Vampaneze away from the city, isn't it?"

Mika nodded.

"But we've got no ties to the city," Kurda continued. "And we'll probably have to kill several of them, because they will fight when they're cornered."

"Probably," Mika replied simply.

Kurda sighed, and leaned back against the edge of the bed.

"Some would say that we're breaking the treaty," he argued.

Mika shrugged one shoulder. "The occupants of the city are blaming the killings on vampires," he explained, still regarding the young vampire with poorly-disguised suspicion. "They will start hunting us. The Vampaneze are endangering us with their actions, so it's a defensive strike."

Kurda frowned.

"It doesn't feel like a defensive strike," he remarked softly. "It feels like an ambush."

Mika enjoyed a debate, but he didn't enjoy dancing around an issue like this. He had known from the very first off-colour comment about chasing the Vampaneze that this discussion would come at some point.

"Do you approve of the killings?" he asked, deliberately testing the water. "Should the Vampaneze be permitted to kill hundreds of humans in one city for no reason?"

"No," Kurda clarified quickly. "I don't agree with that. But I don't agree with us killing them, either."

Mika groaned. "What else do you think we should do?" he asked, and for the first time, Kurda could see a sort of understanding in his black eyes. Despite all of his irritation, all of his confusion about Kurda's place in the vampire ranks, Mika was not like the others either. Arrow had a convenient black and white view, in which everything the Vampaneze did was _evil_ and all actions taken by the vampires thereafter were _right_, or at least were the only options they had to combat the evil. Kurda could make out from the look on his face that Mika clung to that, but couldn't convince himself that they were _right_ as fully as he wanted to.

"Something _else_," Kurda replied, frustrated that he wasn't able to come up with a better answer. "Bloodshed solves nothing."

"It gets our point across."

"But it's _wrong_," Kurda continued. "If we think the Vampaneze are wrong for killing humans, why are we any better for killing _them_ because they kill humans?"

Mika had a couple of answers for that, but none of them seemed like they would work. He rolled onto his chest, and then finally allowed himself to be honest. In the brief moment of silence, Kurda registered that he could no longer hear Arrow's soft snoring.

"They're doing something wrong," he began, and held up a hand when Kurda opened his mouth to argue. "And we're wrong, too. You're spending too much time looking for the right, but you're not going to find it. The trick is to look for the _least wrong_ thing to do."

Kurda blinked, and shook his head, as if that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

"We're not doing the least wrong thing," he said, staring back at the dark General as if trying to establish whether he was insane. "We're planning a surprise attack on a group of Vampaneze and we intend to kill some or all of them, which is _wrong_, because they're killing too many humans, which is wrong too. Wouldn't the _right_ thing to do be to find another way to stop them from killing?"

"Like what?" Mika asked, as though he'd thought this all through before, as though he'd played the argument a thousand times in his head and reached a thousand different dead ends. "_Talking_, I suppose?"

"Maybe!" Kurda defended, voice raising to its ordinary volume, eyes alight. "Why can't we try and do the _right_ thing, rather than just doing the wrong one because it's easier?"

Mika waved a hand in front of his face as if trying to brush away such thoughts. He was beginning to look troubled. Kurda couldn't have known, because nobody did, but Mika had spent many years wondering about the possibility of bridging the gap between vampires and Vampaneze, wondering about how to bring about a peaceful co-existence, and the question had kept him awake long into the day on more than one occasion. It was one of the only puzzles to which he had never been able to find a solution.

"You've held talks with the Vampaneze before," Kurda pushed. "Why wouldn't you push harder? If we could convince them to come back to _us_ again, none of us would have to kill each other anymore."

It was only many years later, under torchlight in the Hall of Death, that Mika would regret not answering more fully. The truth of it was that he just wasn't sure what a truce with the Vampaneze would look like. He didn't like the idea of setting aside any of the ways of the vampires to incorporate their former brothers. The Vampaneze were not the monsters Arrow believed that they were, but with no leaders he couldn't see how they could ever be trusted as a whole cohesive unit – or, indeed, how they could be incorporated into the fold without ruining thousands of years of tradition in the process. Half a century later, Mika would wish he had proposed his views and listened to Kurda's with an open mind, and endeavoured to change the young vampire's mind before it was too late.

As it was, he dismissed the younger man's ideas as nothing but an early crisis of morality. He would come around, given time.

"Maybe one night," he said, and though deep down he felt sympathetic, he kept a tight hold of his guard so as not to let it show. "But not tonight. This time, we'll do what we have to. You'd do well to spend less time thinking on whether you're doing right or wrong. The question could drive a better man than you mad."

Kurda hung his head and sighed bitterly. "So, for now, you're happy with the killing?" he asked, looking disappointed, as if he had expected more. "You haven't got any other ideas?"

"Sometimes the wrong thing is the only thing you can do," Mika said, with a tone of finality.

"There must be something else," Kurda whispered, hopelessly, but the elder vampire shook his head wearily.

"For now, you haven't got a choice," he said, hoping to silence him on the issue for now. "_For now_, you follow orders. Ask me again in twenty years, and we'll talk."

Sensing that he had pushed his luck as far as it would stretch tonight, Kurda nodded silently and shifted to his feet, shuffling back onto the bed and leaving Mika in peace on the carpet. The two said nothing for the rest of the day, but every time Kurda creaked open an eye, unable to sleep through thoughts of the future and of whether or not they were fighting for the greater good, he could see Mika's trained squarely on the ceiling, perhaps wondering the same.


End file.
